The poor illegal immigrants will have no place to garden.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... e=politics

Sheriff's deputies arrest protesters at LA urban garden
- By JACOB ADELMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006


(06-13) 09:24 PDT Los Angeles (AP) --

Actress Daryl Hannah and activist John Quigley watched from a large walnut tree Tuesday while sheriff's deputies evicted farmers from an urban garden, arresting seven as protesters chained themselves to barrels of concrete and noisily demonstrated around the 14-acre downtown site.

"I'm very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers," Hannah said by cell phone. When asked if she was willing to risk arrest, she said, "I'm planning on holding my position."

Seven people were arrested for allegedly violating a court eviction order and obstructing sheriff's deputies enforcing the order, county Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Kerri Webb said. Many of those arrested were hauled away on yellow stretchers.

As many as 20 demonstrators inside the garden chained themselves to each other, the tree or 55-gallon concrete-filled drums.

About 350 farmers have been tending produce and flowers on the privately owned land in the inner-city area surrounded by warehouses and train tracks. The garden has been around for several decades but the landowner, Ralph Horowitz, wants to replace it with a warehouse. He did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

About 120 deputies, including riot forces, showed up around daybreak Tuesday to serve the eviction order that a judge signed last month.

"It's a massive show of force," Quigley, a veteran environmental activist and tree-sitter, said by cell phone. "Our goal is to hold as firm as we can, obviously in a nonviolent manner."

Deputies used saws to cut down the chain-link fence around the site, then to cut through the chains that joined the protesters. Quigley said he could see sparks flying dangerously close to the people's faces and complained that authorities had removed legal observers from the inside the farm.

"It's really an unsafe situation," Quigley said.

Authorities said they were taking care to ensure nobody got hurt.

"We're taking our time so we make sure the protesters are safe," Webb said.

More than 100 protesters gathered outside the area across from the entrance, sporadically chanting, "We're here and we're not going to leave" in Spanish and blowing whistles. Many streets around the compound were closed.

The effort to save the farm has attracted the support of numerous activists and celebrities, including "Splash" and "Wall Street" star Hannah, Quigley, country singer Willie Nelson, actor Danny Glover, folk singer Joan Baez and tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill.

Supporters moved onto the property full-time in mid-May and occupied the walnut tree after the judge issued the eviction order.

The roots of the dispute go back to the 1980s, when the city forced Horowitz to sell the land to for $4.8 million for a trash-to-energy incinerator. The project fizzled and the city turned the land over to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which allowed people to begin gardening there after in the early 1990s.

Horowitz sued to get the site back and the city settled in 2003 by selling it to him for $5 million, slightly more than the $4.8 million he had been paid.

Garden supporters took legal action, but after a winning a temporary court order last year, an appellate court overturned that decision and the state Supreme Court last month decided against hearing the case.

In the meantime, Horowitz offered to sell the land for $16.3 million to a trust set up on behalf of the farmers. The group came up $10 million short when the purchase option expired May 22, and Horowitz got the eviction order.